How the internetworks

　　互聯網如何運作

　　Mapping the tubes;

　　繪制網路全景;

　　Contrary to expectations, the internet has aheart of cable and steel

　　和預期不一樣，互聯網有一顆由電纜和鋼鐵組成的心臟

　　Tubes: A Journey to the Centre of the Internet. By Andrew Blum.

　　《網路：通往互聯網中心的旅程》，作者安德魯布朗姆。

　　Goverments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come fromCyberspace, the new home of Mind. So begins John Perry Barlow, once a lyricist for theGrateful Dead and now a cyber-libertarian, in a tract he penned in 1996, entitled, ADeclaration of the Independence of Cyberspace. It is a poetic summation of the commonimage of the internet as an ethereal, non-physical thingan immanent Cloud that is at onceeverywhere and for ever on the far side of a screen.

　　此書開篇引用了約翰佩里巴洛于1996年寫的一篇文章中的一段話：工業世界的統治者們，你們是由實體和鋼鐵組成的乏味巨物，而我來自思想的新家園網絡空間。他曾是死之華樂隊的作詞人，而今則是一位網絡自由主義者。他還稱此書為網絡空間的獨立宣言。這是對互聯網的普遍印象飽含詩意的總結：飄逸、虛無的東西如一朵浮云，可以即刻無處不在，而又永遠在電腦屏幕遙遠的另一端。

　　For Andrew Blum, a writer for Wired, that illusion was shattered on the day a squirrelchewed through the wire connecting his house to the internet. That rude reminder of thenet s physicality sparked an interest in the infrastructure that makes the internet possiblethe globe-spanning tangle of wires, cables, routers and data centres that most users takeentirely for granted. His book is an engaging reminder that, cyber-Utopianism aside, theinternet is as much a thing of flesh and steel as any industrial-age lumber mill or factory.

　　對于《連線》雜志撰稿人安德魯布朗姆而言，在一只松鼠咬斷他的網線的那天，這種幻想已被打破。這個對網絡實體無禮的提醒激起了他對互聯網基礎設施的興趣，因為這些滿世界繞在一起的電線、電纜、路由器和數據中心使得互聯網成為可能，而大多數用戶認為這些完全是理所當然。他的書是一個引人入勝的提醒：拋開網絡烏托邦主義不談，互聯網和任何工業時代的伐木場或工廠一樣，都是由實體和鋼鐵組成的。

　　It is also an excellent introduction to the nuts and bolts of how exactly it all works. Theterm internet is a collective noun for thousands of smaller networks, run by corporations,governments, universities and private business, all stitched together to form one seamless, global, internetworked whole. In theory, the internet is meant to be widelydistributed and heavily resilient, with many possible routes between any two destinations. Inpractice, a combination of economics and geography means that much of its infrastructure isconcentrated in a comparatively small number of places.

　　該書也是對互聯網所有基本要素如何運作的一次精彩介紹。術語互聯網是一個集合名詞，包括數以千計由公司、政府、大學和私營企業運作的子網絡，所有這些交織在一起形成一個無縫對接、全球互聯運作的網絡整體。理論上說，互聯網應該是分布廣、承載量大、包含任意兩點之間許多可能的路徑。實際上，說它是經濟學和地理學的結合，其意為它將眾多的基礎設施集中于相對少數的空間內。

　　So when Mr Blum travels to the tiny Cornish village of Porthcurno, he is able to see thelanding stations for many of the great transatlantic fibre-optic cables that carry trafficin theform of beams of pulsating laser lightbetween Europe and the Americas. A couple ofhundred miles up the road is the London Internet Exchange, a building in which individualnetworks can connect to each other and to the wider internet. London s exchange is theworld s third-busiest, behind the ones in Frankfurt and Amsterdam. What happens in suchplaces can affect millions of people: one veteran network engineer in an Americanexchange recalls shut[ting] off Australia when one of that country s big networks was tardywith its bills.

　　所以當布朗姆先生來到波斯科諾的小村康沃爾時，他看到了基站站內許多橫跨大西洋的粗大光纖電纜內部迅速地閃動著一道道激光，并以這種形式在歐洲和美洲之間傳遞信息。沿著道路方向的幾百英里外就是倫敦網絡交換中心，通過它，單個的局域網可以相互連通，也可以連接到廣域的互聯網;論繁忙程度，它只排在法蘭克福和阿姆斯特丹之后。這里的所發生的一切可以影響上百萬人：一位曾在美國交換中心工作資深的網絡工程師回憶到，在澳大利亞的巨大局域網中，曾有某個局域網拖欠費用，該中心就發出了 切斷澳大利亞的網路的指令。

　　Network engineering is not a glamorous profession, and the physical structures of thegreatest network ever built lack the grandeur of a hydroelectric dam or a continent-spanning railway. But they do have their own style: featureless, virtually deserted buildings,full of marching rows of high-tech servers and routers fed by thick bundles of cable, theircooling fans forming a roaring chorus in the chilly gloom. That style is modulated by the localculture of wherever the building happens to be. Thus one American firm goes for a superhigh-tech, cyberrific look in an attempt to impress clients. Frankfurt s internet exchangeis a model of cool rationality, whereas London s is grotty and coming apart at the seams.

　　網絡工程并非一個光鮮的行業，而且最為龐大網絡的實物構造缺乏水電大壩的宏偉壯觀，也沒有洲際鐵路的綿延大氣。但它確實有自己的特點：普普通通、幾乎廢棄的大樓里，整齊地排滿了富含高科技的服務器和路由器，由厚厚的幾捆電纜連接起來，它們的散熱風扇在冷清昏暗中組成了一支正在高歌的合唱隊。無論大樓在哪，這種特點都會受到本地文化的影響。因此，一個追求超高科技風格的美國公司，打造網絡交通的外觀是給客戶留下深刻印象的一種嘗試途徑。法蘭克福網絡交換中心就是良好理性的一個模板，而倫敦的則是臟亂帶著些破裂。

　　And then there are the engineers themselves, a rootless but engaging brotherhood thattravels the world from rack to rack, helping to keep the electronic show on the road, andwhose interactions and dealmaking does a lot to shape the geography of the electronicspider s web that now engulfs the planet.

　　還有工程師他們自身是一個較為松散但相處融洽的組織，馬不停蹄地在世界各地旅行，奔波于電子產品展覽會，他們的交際和生意圈如一張電子蜘蛛網正在包圍整個世界。

　　Mr Blum s book is an excellent guide for anyone interested in how the global modernelectronic infrastructure works. And it is a timely antidote to oft-repeated abstractions aboutcyberspace or cloud computing. Such terms gloss over the fact that, just like the pipesthat carry water, the tubes that carry bits are reliant on old-fashioned, low-tech spadework,human contact and the geographical reality in which all that exists.

　　對世界上的現代電子設施是如何運作的這一問題有興趣的任何人，可以通過布朗姆先生這本書得到良好的入門指引。該書也是對被熱議的網絡空間或云計算這類抽象概念的及時說明。這些術語掩蓋了一個事實：正如水管輸送自來水，網路傳遞著信息。它有賴于老式、低技術含量的基礎工作，人們的交往;這些都存在于現實的地理狀況之中。

　　How the internetworks

　　互聯網如何運作

　　Mapping the tubes;

　　繪制網路全景;

　　Contrary to expectations, the internet has aheart of cable and steel

　　和預期不一樣，互聯網有一顆由電纜和鋼鐵組成的心臟

　　Tubes: A Journey to the Centre of the Internet. By Andrew Blum.

　　《網路：通往互聯網中心的旅程》，作者安德魯布朗姆。

　　Goverments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come fromCyberspace, the new home of Mind. So begins John Perry Barlow, once a lyricist for theGrateful Dead and now a cyber-libertarian, in a tract he penned in 1996, entitled, ADeclaration of the Independence of Cyberspace. It is a poetic summation of the commonimage of the internet as an ethereal, non-physical thingan immanent Cloud that is at onceeverywhere and for ever on the far side of a screen.

　　此書開篇引用了約翰佩里巴洛于1996年寫的一篇文章中的一段話：工業世界的統治者們，你們是由實體和鋼鐵組成的乏味巨物，而我來自思想的新家園網絡空間。他曾是死之華樂隊的作詞人，而今則是一位網絡自由主義者。他還稱此書為網絡空間的獨立宣言。這是對互聯網的普遍印象飽含詩意的總結：飄逸、虛無的東西如一朵浮云，可以即刻無處不在，而又永遠在電腦屏幕遙遠的另一端。

　　For Andrew Blum, a writer for Wired, that illusion was shattered on the day a squirrelchewed through the wire connecting his house to the internet. That rude reminder of thenet s physicality sparked an interest in the infrastructure that makes the internet possiblethe globe-spanning tangle of wires, cables, routers and data centres that most users takeentirely for granted. His book is an engaging reminder that, cyber-Utopianism aside, theinternet is as much a thing of flesh and steel as any industrial-age lumber mill or factory.

　　對于《連線》雜志撰稿人安德魯布朗姆而言，在一只松鼠咬斷他的網線的那天，這種幻想已被打破。這個對網絡實體無禮的提醒激起了他對互聯網基礎設施的興趣，因為這些滿世界繞在一起的電線、電纜、路由器和數據中心使得互聯網成為可能，而大多數用戶認為這些完全是理所當然。他的書是一個引人入勝的提醒：拋開網絡烏托邦主義不談，互聯網和任何工業時代的伐木場或工廠一樣，都是由實體和鋼鐵組成的。

　　It is also an excellent introduction to the nuts and bolts of how exactly it all works. Theterm internet is a collective noun for thousands of smaller networks, run by corporations,governments, universities and private business, all stitched together to form one seamless, global, internetworked whole. In theory, the internet is meant to be widelydistributed and heavily resilient, with many possible routes between any two destinations. Inpractice, a combination of economics and geography means that much of its infrastructure isconcentrated in a comparatively small number of places.

　　該書也是對互聯網所有基本要素如何運作的一次精彩介紹。術語互聯網是一個集合名詞，包括數以千計由公司、政府、大學和私營企業運作的子網絡，所有這些交織在一起形成一個無縫對接、全球互聯運作的網絡整體。理論上說，互聯網應該是分布廣、承載量大、包含任意兩點之間許多可能的路徑。實際上，說它是經濟學和地理學的結合，其意為它將眾多的基礎設施集中于相對少數的空間內。

　　So when Mr Blum travels to the tiny Cornish village of Porthcurno, he is able to see thelanding stations for many of the great transatlantic fibre-optic cables that carry trafficin theform of beams of pulsating laser lightbetween Europe and the Americas. A couple ofhundred miles up the road is the London Internet Exchange, a building in which individualnetworks can connect to each other and to the wider internet. London s exchange is theworld s third-busiest, behind the ones in Frankfurt and Amsterdam. What happens in suchplaces can affect millions of people: one veteran network engineer in an Americanexchange recalls shut[ting] off Australia when one of that country s big networks was tardywith its bills.

　　所以當布朗姆先生來到波斯科諾的小村康沃爾時，他看到了基站站內許多橫跨大西洋的粗大光纖電纜內部迅速地閃動著一道道激光，并以這種形式在歐洲和美洲之間傳遞信息。沿著道路方向的幾百英里外就是倫敦網絡交換中心，通過它，單個的局域網可以相互連通，也可以連接到廣域的互聯網;論繁忙程度，它只排在法蘭克福和阿姆斯特丹之后。這里的所發生的一切可以影響上百萬人：一位曾在美國交換中心工作資深的網絡工程師回憶到，在澳大利亞的巨大局域網中，曾有某個局域網拖欠費用，該中心就發出了 切斷澳大利亞的網路的指令。

　　Network engineering is not a glamorous profession, and the physical structures of thegreatest network ever built lack the grandeur of a hydroelectric dam or a continent-spanning railway. But they do have their own style: featureless, virtually deserted buildings,full of marching rows of high-tech servers and routers fed by thick bundles of cable, theircooling fans forming a roaring chorus in the chilly gloom. That style is modulated by the localculture of wherever the building happens to be. Thus one American firm goes for a superhigh-tech, cyberrific look in an attempt to impress clients. Frankfurt s internet exchangeis a model of cool rationality, whereas London s is grotty and coming apart at the seams.

　　網絡工程并非一個光鮮的行業，而且最為龐大網絡的實物構造缺乏水電大壩的宏偉壯觀，也沒有洲際鐵路的綿延大氣。但它確實有自己的特點：普普通通、幾乎廢棄的大樓里，整齊地排滿了富含高科技的服務器和路由器，由厚厚的幾捆電纜連接起來，它們的散熱風扇在冷清昏暗中組成了一支正在高歌的合唱隊。無論大樓在哪，這種特點都會受到本地文化的影響。因此，一個追求超高科技風格的美國公司，打造網絡交通的外觀是給客戶留下深刻印象的一種嘗試途徑。法蘭克福網絡交換中心就是良好理性的一個模板，而倫敦的則是臟亂帶著些破裂。

　　And then there are the engineers themselves, a rootless but engaging brotherhood thattravels the world from rack to rack, helping to keep the electronic show on the road, andwhose interactions and dealmaking does a lot to shape the geography of the electronicspider s web that now engulfs the planet.

　　還有工程師他們自身是一個較為松散但相處融洽的組織，馬不停蹄地在世界各地旅行，奔波于電子產品展覽會，他們的交際和生意圈如一張電子蜘蛛網正在包圍整個世界。

　　Mr Blum s book is an excellent guide for anyone interested in how the global modernelectronic infrastructure works. And it is a timely antidote to oft-repeated abstractions aboutcyberspace or cloud computing. Such terms gloss over the fact that, just like the pipesthat carry water, the tubes that carry bits are reliant on old-fashioned, low-tech spadework,human contact and the geographical reality in which all that exists.

　　對世界上的現代電子設施是如何運作的這一問題有興趣的任何人，可以通過布朗姆先生這本書得到良好的入門指引。該書也是對被熱議的網絡空間或云計算這類抽象概念的及時說明。這些術語掩蓋了一個事實：正如水管輸送自來水，網路傳遞著信息。它有賴于老式、低技術含量的基礎工作，人們的交往;這些都存在于現實的地理狀況之中。